After two admittedly fair reports on testing of children and young people and the use of the Louisa Jordan hospital, Catriona Renton, former Labour Party councillor, in a strangely hesitant and amateurish manner, slipped in a small but important lie about the closure of Hunterston B nuclear power station: The announcement ensures that Scotland will be more dependent than ever on fossil fuels, largely imported gas. This is another frankly astonishing claim which the BBC charter and editorial guidelines require it to have checked for accuracy. BBC Scotland staff know well the true facts on any supposed dependence on fossils … Continue reading GMB/Labour lie about Scotland’s power offered up unchallenged by Reporting Scotland’s resident Labour councillor

Less than 3 weeks ago, Scotland’s MSM and their opposition party feeders were hopeful they might embarrass the Scottish Government on their contact tracing data. Sadly for them, last week, the FM was able to reveal 97% success. Today the figures for England were published and only 75.5% have been contacted, failing the 80% (only) target there: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/aug/27/uk-coronavirus-live-people-on-low-pay-to-get-covid-isolation-payment?page=with:block-5f479b928f08767dd7f1044e#block-5f479b928f08767dd7f1044e The Scottish performance is thus (22% of 75%) 30% better. Continue reading Scotland’s contact tracing teams perform massive 30% better than those in England.

As with the contact tracing statistics (99.7%), the Scottish Government is obliged to wait until the statistics are shown to be reliable but in the preceding weeks or months the opposition parties and allies in the trade unions are regularly platformed (above) in Scotland’s NoMedia calling for the facts yesterday. Today, the First Minister was in a position to reveal the facts about testing of those of school age. As with the contact tracing statistics, the results cast serious doubt on the media frenzy (above) as it we find that 97.7% of 17 500 tests came back negative ie not … Continue reading As 97.7% of kids test negative, teachers’ fears of infection have been amplified by noise from opposition politicians and union pals

This has to be a first! In the world of Brian Monteith, John McClelland and Brian Wilson, near the letters pages saturated with the rancid lies of the likes of Professor Stevenson and Scotland in Union’s writing team, Professor Sridhar appears to put things into perspective as an academic should. Once in a red, white and blue moon, the Scotsman publishes something true. It’s not the top story of course. Celtic crashing out of Europe is clearly more important than our 700 000 school pupils in a time of pandemic. You’ll want to read the whole thing so only a … Continue reading ‘Scotland’s school children are among the world’s lucky ones’

In a stunning moment of clarity and honesty, on GMS yesterday, BBC Scotland’s Political Editor told listeners: The thing to bear in mind is they [GERS]were first published in 1992 in John Major as Prime Minister and [the vampiric] Ian Lang as Scottish Secretary and yes I covered that news conference. The point is that although they are statistical calculations, from the very outset they had a political purpose at that time. It was designed to undermine what was seen as a drive toward Scottish self-government. It’s long been apparent that Taylor’s intellectual vanity might one day betray BBC Scotland’s … Continue reading SHOCK: BBC’s Brian Taylor tells listeners that GERS is anti-Independence propaganda. It is too

Sixteen people died in the last 24 hours, in England, from coronavirus infection. At the beginning of August around 13 people were dying directly from coronavirus infection every day. By today the 7 day average has dropped to 10. Over the last 30 days more than 300 have died. The BBC in England does not report this. Indeed, they rarely report the pandemic at all. In Scotland, below, and almost every day in recent weeks, rising infection levels and especially any ‘linked to‘ schools have been in the headlines. Yesterday, the first deaths for six weeks headlined in Scotland. The … Continue reading The 300 deaths BBC England dare not report

In an letter published as clickbait in the Herald, retired Edinburgh University professor and member of the Scotland in Union covert letter writing group suggests: Now even the kids know that the money used to furlough Scottish workers was borrowed and did not come from taxpayers in any part of the UK. Scottish taxation will be used to pay back our share. Like Ireland or Denmark, an independent Scotland could have borrowed too. Had Scotland been independent over a longer period, of course, she would not have needed to borrow at all, safe in the massive savings from oil wealth … Continue reading Professor of German History says English taxpayers saved Scotland

In the Herald today, a great letter, arguing points I’ve made but with greater articulation and style. As I read it, I thought that reminds me of something. It’s this: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/08/25/more-of-the-same-lies/ but once I read my own post again, I was disappointed by the quality. Leah Gunn Barrett writes far better than wot I do. And s(he) has a great name too! Luckily, I’m a big ideas man. How about we set up a letter writing group where followers of the Tusker write to the Herald and the Scotsman or phone Kay Adams and repeat the points either I’ve made … Continue reading Should the Tusker set up its own covert letter-writing group like SiU?

Beacom usually does light entertainment but has strayed into serious politics here, joining a posse of other writers at the Herald and elsewhere, convinced the FM and the SNP are actually rubbish at the job and yet the proles love them. I won’t be reinventing the wheel here after ten or more rebuttals of the same argument. Here’s one I made earlier (May 25th), for your big pal Macwhirter: I guess if you don’t want to know something, you just don’t look. It’s a blinkered man who thinks these are just PR: Higher recovery rate Lower excess mortality rate Mortality among … Continue reading You think we’re stupid don’t you Brian?

Survation‘s poll for 21st August has a Scottish sub-sample of only 72 so we must remain sanguine as we, nevertheless, enjoy the Tory score of only 13%, as Douglas Ross settles into the job. Here’s the whole thing: Con 13% Lab 19% LD 11% SNP 54% Given that the SNP and Labour figures are in line with other polls, maybe the Con figure will turn out to be an early warning of the Ross effect – a Lib Dem surge? It’s also entertaining to look sideways and see Tory support holding up at over 40% across England, suggesting, possibly, the … Continue reading Wee poll has Scottish Tories at 13%!